What's the job really like?

Jordan: Hi my name is Jordan Walsh and I’m looking at a career in motor trimming.

Clinton: From seats to covers to carpet, motor trimming is part of the industrial textile fabrication industry. The work may involve restoring classic cars, as well as fitting out the carpets, seats and fabric surrounds to boats, yachts, and super yachts. Charman Motor Trimmers and Upholsterers carry out a huge range of motor trimming and Charman’s was recognised with the OFPANZ apprentice of the year in 2008. The company’s managing director is Kimber Buglass.

Kimber: Hi Jordan, how are you?

Jordan: Good, how are you?

Kimber: Come on through.

Clinton: Kimber takes Jordan through the company’s safety procedures before they suit up for the first job of the day.

Kimber: OK Jordan, what we’re going to do now is take the seat off this bike – as you can see, it’s got a tear in it.

Kimber: That’s it, cool.

Kimber: Right, we’ll turn this over and what we’re going to do is remove all the staples around the base.

Kimber: Excellent. I’ll get you to go over and see Paul now, and he'll show you how to mark one out and do some screening on the back of the cover.

Paul: Hi Jordan, Paul. How are ya?

Jordan: Good, how are you?

Paul: Good. Right, this is one of our patterns here for our motorbike seat cover here, and we just want to lay it out on the vinyl as economically as possible. Just use this chinagraph pencil here and just mark around the outside. Hold it down with a weight to keep it place and just go for it, mark it out.

Jordan: Sweet.

Paul: Marking out is really the most important part of the job – it's really getting all your marks to line up and all the nicks, if they don’t get put on the material properly, then you’ll find that when they come to sew it and they don’t line up, then your job is a failure. The precision of marking is the most important part of the trimming trade.

Paul: OK. Now that you’ve marked around, we can go ahead and cut it out now. A great job.

Jordan: Cheers.

Clinton: He can handle a pencil, but how good is he at cutting?

Paul: Yeah, speed comes with age in the trade, but to start off with we always encourage them to do it slowly to get it right. And then later on down the track they’ll find that hand-eye co-ordination with the scissors comes in.

Paul: Great, that’s a good job of cutting it out. You’ve stayed on the line, that’s perfect.

Paul: OK Jordan, this is where we do the screen-printing. We’re going to use this Honda logo here and we’ll screen it on to the vinyl there.

Kimber: Basically, you need a flair for detail, a bit of an artistic flair helps, a bit of imagination, thinking before you start the job what it’s going to look like when it’s finished. Then hopefully with the skills that you’ve picked up through the trade you’ll see that in the end result, when the job is completed.

Kimber: Good Jordan, that’s well done. OK, we’ll get you to sew that together soon. But first of all, we’ll test your sewing skills. I’ll get you to have a go on this machine.

Kimber: That’s good.

Kimber: Start off slowly, learning how to sew a straight line. Then move on to curves, and once that skill has been adapted through the years, it just comes naturally.